The Subway

This evening I was sitting on the E train heading for a meeting in an office downtown.  I was properly bundled and I was reading a torn and crinkled issue of The New Yorker saved from the crowded mess of my book bag.   I am a New Yorker and I know it. After three years here I know the subway lines, I don't get offered double-decker bus tours anymore and I give directions to strangers and hail cabs.  I am comfortable in my skin. As long as it is properly attired for the weather.

A woman sat next to me. She was carrying a step ladder. Folded.  It didn't look like she just bought it from Bed, Bath and Beyond.  It didn't have a security sticker; it looked like she just took it to use places.  I could feel my body wanting to lean over and say something like "Do you need that to read the adverts on the subway?"  But I just could not think of anything that was either 1. funny or 2. not too obvious.  Unlike a REAL New Yorker, I felt compelled to engage with her.  Just to engage? Well, I think I want to know someone who carries a step ladder with her.

She would always have a seat places.  She could reach things at the grocery.  Or a library.  A liability at the airport surely.

I then thought about how great it would be to carry a seat with you wherever you went because you would always have one!  I used to think it would be great to carry a parking space.  And I also used to think of how great it would be to be able to shrink so tiny that you could carry your house with you and live anywhere!  But the fear of cats would multiply.  And unwanted grasshoppers knocking on your door with a loud bang.   Don't think I would like that. I almost figured I didn't carry my house out of fear of getting eaten.  I never even regarded that it was a real non-issue since I couldn't shrink.

My stop. I got off the train. The woman with the step ladder had farther to go.  I mentally thanked her for getting my thoughts to go places.  But I will never know where she is from and why she carries that step ladder. And I guess that will just have to be okay.

Drone on....

Today I like being a drone in New York City. By that I mean one of the many ants who funnel down the subway stairwells and huddle onto a sardine cansiter of a train car and reappear out of some other stairwell elsewhere to scurry into a building, flash a card and pack into an elevator to finally have some individuality in a cubicle overlooking a sea of other buildings with other individuals in cubes.

"Another Hundred People Just Got Off of the Train."  Indeed.

By droning lately I feel part of the Manhattan (wait for it)...zeitgeist.  I feel like saying to my subway neighbor who has her purse pressing into my thigh, "Hey neighbor, I commute too!  Isn't it great?!"  But she is listening to her ipod and reading a kindle. But I know, I KNOW we would have a great conversation if we met and her story of getting here to NYC would make me laugh and she would like mine. That is comforting.

Today right after we got to the 28th Street stop and newbies boarded, I heard "Hey Joe!!"  I tell you New York City is a small town. It happens to me all the time. And I am a real newbie. 

So today I will work in my cube and try to make eye contact with someone from another department in the break room and regardless of whether I am successful or not I will relish this day as part of the hive that is this buzzing, vibrant, thrilling Manhattan.

Gran Mar-Nyay in Subway

I saw this airline-sized bottle of Grand Marnier, a French liqueur of bitter orange and cognac, on the steps leading out of the subway.  The same steps I quite often see a fellow citizen passed out on.  I accept beer bottles and whisky bottles and even wine bottles strewn here, but it struck me funny that a "civilized" drink such as this could be "enjoyed" on the grimy steps of the MTA. 

But I guess this is where trying to be "civilized" gets many of us. 

Me, I'm a Drambuie man myself.